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“He said he would help me?”
Chloe turns it into a question, looking up at me just like she used to when she wanted me to tell her everything would be okay, back when she was young. When she wanted to hear that the monsters weren’t real.
Some of them are though, and our father was one of them. I honestly can’t picture the piece of shit following through on the offer to help. If anything, he would have just found another way to use her. But he’s gone and he can’t hurt Chloe anymore, so I don’t say it. I just lean in and kiss her forehead, giving her hand another squeeze too, and tell her to go on.
“Dad, um,Franktold me he needed a few days, but when I called back, I…” She swallows. “I heard them.” It comes out as a strained whisper. “I heard West Point come in. I heard them when he dropped the phone. They were hurting him.” She sucks in a breath, covering her mouth. “They werekillinghim.”
But they didn’t kill him. They left him alive. He died in my arms. Whatever Chloe heard over the phone must have been frightening and terrible, but she didn’tactuallyhear him die.
It’s not much, but it’s something, and I cling to it.
“They knew he was on the phone with me,” Chloe says, her hand trembling in mine. “It’s why I ran from that place over near Alameda.”
If she thought she had to run, then she heard him give her up. Either that, or she realized he would.
I hate Frank just a little bit more for that. I hug Chloe tightly. “I’m proud of you. Running was the right move.”
She sags against me for a moment, but I understand completely when she almost immediately stiffens and pulls away. The Reapers are strangers to her. She won’t let herself look too weak in front of them, and any comfort I can truly offer her will have to be later, in private.
I share a look with Logan as I let her go. If anyone gets what it is to have shitty parents, it’s him, and it warms something in me to see the understanding in his pale eyes.
It warms me even more when he turns away and starts pulling ingredients out of the fridge.
Hemay eat the most boring stuff on the planet for his own meals, but I’m starting to understand him a little too, and I know it means that, in his own way, he’s trying to take care of my sister. He’s showing that he cares.
He’s going to feed her.
Dante’s phone rings and he steps away quietly. The low murmur of his voice as he deals with gang business creates a kind of background noise that has become reassuringly familiar to me over the last few weeks. While Logan starts preparing food, he and Maddoc discuss the steps they’ve taken to protect the house, and how to coordinate that with the rest of their gang.
Chloe still seems groggy and exhausted, but she’s obviously recovering from whatever they drugged her with, just like the men promised she would. But it’s equally obvious she still feels uncertain here, around them.
I want to reassure her again. I also want to find out every detail of the time she was out there on her own. But all of that can come later. For now, we talk about easy things, eat the food Logan made us, and slowly, I start to see her grow more comfortable and relax.
“Spend the day with her, princess,” Dante whispers, pausing his phone conversation to press a kiss against my temple as he leaves the kitchen. “You fucking deserve it.”
Chloe gives me a curious look when he walks away. “They really are on our side?”
“They really are,” I say, a lump in my throat at the thought of leaving them behind. But I force it away. I’ve spent my whole life doing whatever I have to do to keep Chloe safe, and I’ll never regret it. Instead, I take Dante’s advice and spend the day catching up with her.
Awonderfulday.
A relaxing day.
A day—and a reunion—that neither one of us ever could have had, if not for the Reapers making it possible.
43
RILEY
When everything Chloehas been through finally catches up with her, it’s early evening. We did talk about some of what she went through on the streets throughout the day, and I filled her in a little more about my time with the Reapers too, but for the last couple of hours we’ve simply been hanging out—giggling a little, enjoying some snacks Logan quietly delivered to us, and snuggling together in the big bed in my room like we’ve done dozens of times before. Having a pajama party, we used to call it. Neither one of us have actual pajamas right now, but we do have unlimited streaming and foundWhip It, a movie we used to watch with our Mom, on one of the services.
Chloe falls asleep halfway through the movie with her head on my shoulder. She passes out hard, dead to the world, and I sit with her as the movie wraps up, stroking her hair back from her forehead like I used to when she was little and feeling so fucking grateful to have this moment with her that my throat closes up, my eyes pricking with the hot sting of tears I won’t shed.
I’ve done enough of that. I’m not going to do it now, when I’mhappy.
I never would have gotten her back without the Reapers’ help. Not the first time, and definitely not the second. And I never would have had a day like today either, where I didn’t have to worry about anything other than how happy I was to be reunited with her, if it hadn’t been for them.
It’s an amazing feeling to actually have people looking out for me and keeping the wolves at bay so I could have that, and I’m suddenly overcome with the need to… I don’t even know. Be with them? Let them know how I feel? Thank them?
